NATION NETWORK SURVEY

It’s back to work time at the Nation. Unreasonable
optimism is beginning to build here in Edmonton, Brian Burke is already irate about something or other down in Calgary and in Vancouver ocean kayakers shrug indifferently at one other when the Canucks are infrequently mentioned.

We have some big things planned for the Nation Network this
fall. Existing sites are being rebuilt. Sexy new looks are being designed. We
have also purchased one of the largest hockey sites on all of the internets and
we will be announcing all of this fun in the next couple weeks.

As part of our rebuild + relaunch plans we are doing a super
annoying 4 minute survey. You know the kind that we all hate to do.

It’s important that we gather
this information to:

1)Make sure that things you like are made even
better

2)Make sure that things you don’t like are sent
straight to hell

3)Understand how people are using the Nation
Network for good or evil

4)Steal your personal information

In exchange for your valuable time we are giving away (10)
iTunes Gift Cards and (10) Nation Gear items. In addition everyone who
enters the survey will get a discount of 20% towards future Nation Gear
purchases.

We humbly beg you to take our quick survey. It will provide
us with key data to drive our future plans. And hey, if you wrote a survey your
ol’ pal Wanye will be first in line to fill it out for you too.

55 Comments |

This is hockey country and there are a lot of really good Edmonton Oilers websites. ON is my favourite by far, but if I had to pay for something I would happily move on to another site for my hockey news fix.

I remember Win Butler of Arcade Fire recently saying something about how it’s kind of dumb that people still take recordings for free when they’re buying $6 fancy coffees. I get that. Hard work deserves reward.

Unfortunately, the amount of hockey content that exists is large and growing, just like music.

I guess that’s because both hockey and music are awesome and tons of people care about it. They just don’t care about paying people for it because they’re too busy caring about not being broke (like everyone, including bloggers and musicians I know).

I’ve attended the events put on by Nation that came with a fee because they were fun, and I will continue to. The articles do not rock my world like getting together with cool people; drinking and talking about hockey.

The articles for me are more like a hit that needs to be taken to satisfy the addiction I have to living vicariously through big guys, who can skate fast, hit other guys skating fast and crush little rubber discs into nets. You know, really awesome and stupid stuff. They’re the sun’s moon, prolonging that light I love so dearly.

But, if it comes down to premium content versus a case of beer and all the free articles on the web, it’s an easy decision. Put me in a different income bracket and this comment would be entirely different. But, I suspect that most of the patrons of this site are closer to my realities than not.

Regardless, we’ve seen Cam Charron and now, Steve Dangle get great gigs as a result of this website, so you guys are totally onto something huge.

Especially considering how contentious Cam was in his writing towards the organization, and it’s workers, before it became his employer.

My hope is that your website will one day overtake the crappy mainstream output obsessed with lazy narratives and transform the hockey media into something that not only asks relevant questions but, gives answers (like you have already done with a cautious approach, complete with concrete numbers and figures) as opposed to rampant speculation and arrogant absolution.

All the best Nation! You guys are (hopefully) the future of relevant hockey coverage. You already are to me.

For you guys that are cheap about the journal and other papers you know you can go get a free library card and get full digital access to newspapers (thousands including the journal). He’ll they even have a partnership with rbdigital/zino to download tons of magazines (including maxim).

I forgot to mention in the survey, could you get some Oilers Nation tank tops so I could rock the copper & blue in the gym? I honestly own way too many t-shirts(especially Oilers, I already have like 6) hence why I haven’t bought one.

I detest surveys that force me to put in an entry when I have nothing to say. (13). I usually close the survey as soon as that occurs but I like you folk enough to put up with that once. Of course when I hit 33 and 34 and had no wish to answer I just closed the whole survey, guess you really didn’t want my other 31 answers.

If you come up with something where substance matters more than formalism let me know. I’ll try again.